Some of our customers and staff may have seen the recent media coverage calling for the UK government to make food labelling laws more comprehensive, particularly with regard to the origin of raw ingredients. Openness and transparency are good. Telling customers that their Pret coffee comes from Ethiopia, their smoked salmon from Scotland, their bananas from Costa Rica and their brie from France allows them to know where the raw ingredients originated ...... nothing wrong with that. Knowledge is good and in many cases nothing will change in the short term - Pret tea will still come from plantations in Sri Lanka and our beef from Southern Ireland.

Buying ingredients locally makes perfect sense for a multitude of reasons. Pret banned 'air miles' on all our ingredients (other than fresh basil) some time ago and we are not in the least bit flippant about the strong feelings of our staff and customers about nurturing the environment.

Buying decisions don't just come down to distance, however, and other things come into play - weather and local farming methods being just two. Is it better to grow tomatoes in the sunshine of Southern Spain and then put them on a boat, or to grow them in a poly tunnel under UV light in England? Is it better to buy 'open barn' chicken from Brazil where the good weather and traditional farming methods means the chickens have plenty of sunshine and fresh air, or should we buy from intensive local farms in the UK where the chickens have no natural light? Or should we double the cost of the chicken sandwich and go for UK supplied organic, free-range chicken? Despite these thorny, complicated issues our long term goal is to move to UK free-range chicken, but this will take time as there simply isn't enough of it. What there is, is completely tied up with the big supermarkets. It's a huge on-going project for us, and we are deeply committed to it.

Currently there is a debate in the press around the process of freezing and use of the word 'fresh'. Our food is freshly made, it always has been. This means that our teams get up each morning to make our sandwiches, salads and wraps in our two hundred shop kitchens. We do not believe that using ingredients that have been frozen is in any way comparable to making processed food, as no additives or preservatives are used and quality, nutrients and taste are retained.

Pret will continue to strive to make and sell the best food we can with the many considerations taken into account. We will never deviate from our long held mission statement 'Creating hand-made, natural food, avoiding the obscure chemicals, additives and preservatives common to much of the 'prepared' and 'fast' food on the market today.'

If you'd like any further information on any of these issues, please click through to our sustainability policy